Renfros or papa bear

mstei4

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Apr 27, 2020
Messages
111
Location
SE Idaho
Not a hunt, but my Dad did a fishing trip with Papa Bear about 2 years back and hasn’t stopped taking about it. The group he went with has been going for 15-20 years and always goes through Papa Bear
 

HornPorn

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Oct 7, 2020
Messages
292
Not a hunt, but my Dad did a fishing trip with Papa Bear about 2 years back and hasn’t stopped taking about it. The group he went with has been going for 15-20 years and always goes through Papa Bear
I have a buddy who goes on fishing trips with them every 2 years and says good things as well.
 

AKDoc

WKR
Classified Approved
Joined
May 16, 2015
Messages
1,532
Location
Alaska
I was avoiding this thread because I am clearly biased in my perspective and preference, and I can not objectively answer the OP's question. I have booked with Renfro for two trips a year for the past nine years, and I am booked for two again next year...moose and remote packraft fly-fishing. I've also made friends with some of the pilots and staff over the years...I am clearly biased.

I do want to make a couple of experiential (and hopefully objective) comments as a help for others in terms of expectations...

GMU-18 does have high moose densities...a resident can take two and actually a third later in the year. It is a somewhat/slightly diverse area with some relatively higher elevation ridge hunts on wheels east of the Yukon river. However, the primary moose hunting area of this unit when on floats, which we have done, is a massively huge and generally flat region west of the Yukon river, which is loaded with countless remote lakes, marshes, and all other forms of wet terrain...one right after the other...all of which moose love. Calling a satellite bull to us or into camp has been common, and we each take one...every year. We are not trophy hunting, so a +60" bull is not our focused goal. We have seen a few big bruisers of that size at great distances, but certainly not every year, and each time the circumstances with those big guys at distance have not been conducive for us to take one, e.g., they've always been on several cows so they don't/won't come closer to calls, and their specific distant location each time precluded responsible meat retrieval for us (we're not going to stand in knee-deep mucky water to field butcher meat to bring home to our families, nor take several days to get it hanging back in camp for pick-up). The bulls we have taken are predominantly high 40's, a couple low fifties, and one high 50's...all healthy and excellent eating. That said, every single year in the hangar we see many racks from other hunters that are much bigger than what we took, as well as some truly gigantic monsters.

If your primary goal is similar to mine...to have a totally remote moose hunt, where you never see another hunter, and you are very likely to harvest a bull and bring home wonderful meat...then this is definitely a good area to consider.

Edit: One other disclosure I forgot to mention because I just don't really think about it much...we are older hunters...both of us are 69 (but still going strong and getting it done!)
 
Last edited:

1CRAZY1

FNG
Joined
Oct 17, 2021
Messages
1
Hey guys I’m looking to hunt the west side of Alaska and narrowed it down to these two and everything seems amazing between the two so it feels like splitting hairs but I’d love to know if there are any deciding factors to think about between the two that I may be missing. I’d love any feedback

AF- You’re not splitting hairs, I believe one is clearly head and shoulders over the other. I hunted with Renfro’s recently and unfortunately, there is no way that I could recommend them or consider hunting with them again. My group and many others we spoke with had a plethora of problems, mishaps, lack of service etc etc!

I have not been with P-Bear, but everyone that I have spoke with has had nothing but good things to say about them. When I was in town and at the airport their professionalism and service also demonstrated this. They’re booked until 2024 currently I understand.

My suspicion is that if the hunting in unit 18 wasn’t so good and there were 1 more option offering a comparable type of hunt, Renfro’s would be sitting in the hangar.

Oliver is very nice guy, but unfortunately you will not see him or Sharon when you get to Bethal.

I am happy to further discuss by PM or phone in great detail if you, or anyone looking to do a trip like this desires.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

jruff002

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Apr 2, 2019
Messages
146
This is correct. To be fair, Wade is operating on floats and wheels while Justin is only operating on floats. Obviously gives him more opportunity for added groups. There are a lot of good hunting spots in GMU 18, to the points that even the "bad" ones are better than most anywhere else in the state. But there are limited excellent spots. Justin focuses in on 20-25 excellent spots. He expects all of his clients to shoot a moose and when they don't, it's typically b/c it was a bowhunter, an early exit, or someone passed themselves out of a moose. Also, Justin has several days during the heart of the season where he has no groups or maybe one group booked. They are factored in weather days. PB isn't so much a smaller operation. They have 3 planes hooked to heaters each night and could easily be pumping out 6-8 groups a day during the first 20 days of the season. they just choose to operate on a different scale.

It's always amazing that none of these threads bring up the #1 thing people should be looking at when booking an air transporter. That's safety and company flight records. Do your own research. Even the best pilots/companies screw up. An accident every decade can happen, anything over that is absolutely unacceptable and gets a big red X from me.
exactly what William is telling you...i did my research like you are doing now but back in 2019 and got drawn to hunt this year. We had a great and successful hunt with Papa Bear and i've either spoke, emailed, or read from literally hundreds of people on this topic....hands down Papa Bear is the choice. Not everybody has a bad issue with Renfro's but i've talked to a lot of people that have, NOBODY i've talked to has had anything but great things to say about Papa....just my .02
 
Top